Your saves are on this device only.
Your browser may clear them at any time. You won't be able to see them on other devices. Create a free account or sign in to keep them safe in the cloud.
We've included every museum in London. Use the filters to find something for you.
A one-room version of London's oldest toy museum, in a Victorian market arcade.
Free
A single shop unit in Leadenhall Market holding a miniature version of the museum: highlights from the collection in the cases, and a shop selling the toy theatres, cut-out sheets and traditional toys that are the reason the place exists. The current display is Shops, prompted by the market's own Victorian shopfronts - six prints from The Book of Shops of 1899, toy theatre shop scenes, and a donated model shop stocked with miniature food packets.
Pollock's is named for Benjamin Pollock, who printed toy theatres in Hoxton. The things were a Regency craze: a paper proscenium, sheets of characters and scenery to cut out and colour, and a script, so that a child could put on Jack Sheppard or The Corsican Brothers at home. Pollock kept the trade alive into the twentieth century almost alone, and when he died in 1937 a collector named Alan Keen bought everything left in the shop - the unsold prints and the printing plates, some going back to the 1830s - rather than see it thrown out. The museum opened in 1956 and is one of the oldest of its kind in Britain, with puppets, optical toys, tin toys, teddy bears, dolls' houses and folk toys from around the world alongside the theatres. Robert Louis Stevenson, who bought his sheets from Pollock, wrote: if you love art, folly or the bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock's.
Free, though donations go to keeping the collection. Thursdays and Fridays only; the larger room is in Croydon and opens on Saturdays.
| Monday | Closed |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | Closed |
| Wednesday | Closed |
| Thursday | 11:00 – 15:00 |
| Friday | 11:00 – 15:00 |
| Saturday | Closed |
| Sunday | Closed |
Submit a correction for this listing.
Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.